Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the sector of goods warehousing. Said present invention relates to a warehousing installation, a warehousing system, and a picking system, as well as to a method for operating a warehousing system.
Discussion of Related Art
Handling goods of all types which are manufactured, packaged, and finally shipped to the vendor or buyer particularly in the age of online shopping via the internet requires smart warehouse management comprising in particular transferring to stock, removing from stock, and transporting.
Many goods such as, for example, apparatuses, foodstuffs, pharmaceuticals, apparel, consumables, books, sound-recording media, etc. are already provided with their own packaging by the manufacturer and are optionally grouped to form larger units which are provided on standardized pallets, for example. These pallets are typically moved using fork-lift trucks, loaded onto trucks or unloaded therefrom, and are placed into racks of a warehouse and removed from the warehouse if and when required.
In certain sectors of the logistics industry, automated high-stack warehouses which are operated by automated loading and unloading devices interdisposed in the aisles between the individual racks are employed in particular.
Warehousing systems in which the goods last entering the warehouse must then be removed as the first because the racks in most cases may only be stacked and emptied from the one side are known. This type of warehousing is complex.
Furthermore, through-flow racks which operate on the FI-FO principle of “first in-first out” are known as dynamic warehousing systems. These racks may be stacked with goods from one side while goods which are infed simultaneously or which have been previously infed in a time-delayed manner may be removed from an opposite side. The goods in the through-flow rack are either actively conveyed by means of drivable conveying means or are propelled by gravity on slides or rolling floors to the removal side. Both types of conveying demand complex and expensive conveying systems such as roller track conveyors or spherical track conveyors. Transferring the goods to stock and removing the goods from stock may be performed manually or in a mechanized manner.
Such rack-type warehouses are disadvantageous in that the space conditions in the aisles between the racks are limited. In this way, removal from one rack may often be performed only when and if there is not already a removal from another rack taking place in the same aisle. In particular in the case of mechanized rack-type warehouses it is often not possible for a plurality of removals to be able to be carried out simultaneously in one aisle, since the removal devices would not find sufficient space for crossing in the aisles.
If the goods have to be transported on standardized pallets, grouped together to form larger units, such a larger unit has to be broken up in order for individual items of the goods to be provided for further processing. This causes additional problems when the units are held together on the pallet by strapping or film-wrapping.
It is indeed known, for example in the case of high-stack warehouses, for pallets having the goods located thereon to be slotted into the racks on roller tracks which slope downward toward the removal side, so that the pallets are self-actingly moved toward the removal side and the next pallet automatically follows on once the previous pallet has been removed from the rack. Nevertheless, the removed pallets have to be transported out of the warehouse, using complex servicing apparatuses.
The situation becomes even more difficult when the goods are individually stocked and destocked in their own packaging. When various goods having different types of packaging and/or sizes of packaging are present, the situation becomes even more complicated. Automated and mechanized stocking and destocking in this case is very hard to implement so that stocking and destocking typically is performed manually.
What has been stated above applies equally to transporting the goods from the manufacturer to the warehouse or from the warehouse to the vendor or retail customer.
Goods are preferably shipped in a picked manner to the vendors and retail customers, or else for intra-logistic processes (for example for the final assembly of components). A picking lot comprises an arbitrary number of articles from the warehoused range and is put together according to a picking order. A picking lot may be put together from a multiplicity of different articles or types of goods in the most varied numbers. The person putting together the order is referred to as a picker. In one embodiment the articles or goods are put together in an order container or a picking container, wherein the order containers or picking containers are fed to further processing steps such as to quality control, a packing station, a shipping station, etc.
In the case of sequenced picking, the individual orders are completed one after the other. Here, respective warehouse zones may be walked by a single picker, or a specific warehouse zone may be walked in each case by one and the same picker, the order being transferred from one picker to another picker at the borders between the warehouse zones.
In the case of a parallel picking method, the order is separated into part-orders, the part-orders being completed in parallel in the respective warehouse zones and the performed part-pickings being finally brought together. A series of a plurality of part-orders may be completed in the respective warehouse zones, one warehouse spot having to be in each case approached only once within a series.
The largest proportion of the entire picking time is caused by the distance which has to be walked during the removals. This time may be reduced by increasing the concentration of articles, in that highest-in-demand articles are warehoused at the beginning, or in that picking vehicles are employed.
In the case of picking robots the articles are located in shafts which are attached along a conveyor belt. Each article has a dedicated shaft. In order for a picking order to be carried out, a container on the conveyor belt is guided along the shafts, and the articles corresponding to the order are dispensed into the container in a centrally controlled manner.
Picking robots or picking fork-lifts are capable of approaching individual rack compartments, to remove an article therefrom using a gripper system, and of collecting articles in a container. In order for the rack compartments to be approached, a navigation system which is based on RFID tags disposed in the rack aisles, for example, is provided. The gripper system is equipped with an image-processing system, for example, in order to identify articles and their position.
In the case of manual picking systems, a differentiation is made between goods-to-person systems and person-to-goods systems. In a goods-to-person system the containers having identical articles are fed on a conveyor belt to the pickers who remove the required articles from the respective container. In a person-to-goods system the pickers walk the respective warehouse zones in order to remove the required articles from the racks.
In order for picking to be facilitated picking sheets, mobile data acquisition apparatuses, bar code readers, RFID readers, or image/sound processing apparatuses may be employed.
JP 2006016044 proposes that a packaging container which is easy to transport, which can horizontally hold a packaged item, and which can also improve the receiving efficiency in a receiving room, be provided.
To this end, the spherical packaging container is provided with a first container which is a spherical hollow body, a second container which is a spherical hollow body received in the first container and which receives one packaged item, and with coupling means which intercouple the first container and the second container so as to have a degree of freedom of two or more axes.
A third spherical container, which is a spherical hollow body received in the first container and which receives the second container, is provided, wherein the inner face of the first container and the outer face of the third container, using first coupling elements which are positioned on a first straight line which runs through the center of the third container, are intercoupled at two points, and the inner face of the third container and the outer face of the second container, using second coupling elements which are positioned on a second straight line which runs through the center of the second container and is perpendicular to the first straight line, are intercoupled at two points.
Since the spherical packaging container has a spherical shape, the spherical packaging container for conveying thereof may be rolled by an operator. Accordingly, it is not always necessary for the spherical packaging container to be lifted during conveying, and the spherical packaging container may be conveyed more easily. Furthermore, a U-shaped channel may be used for conveying the spherical packaging containers. If an inclination of the channel is provided, the spherical packaging container in this case rolls from a high side to a lower side, propelled by gravity. The inner container may always be kept horizontal, even when the spherical packaging container is being rolled.
In this type of packaging and of a packaging container the extraordinarily complicated internal construction of the packaging which is impractical when processing comparatively large volumes of goods is disadvantageous. Further disadvantages lie therein that the packaged contents are not protected in a content-specific manner and efficient and economical warehouse management using these packaging containers is not disclosed.
Publication U.S. Pat. No. 7,954,661 B2 discloses a transport container which comprises a spherical container as well as heat-storing material which is disposed within the spherical container. The heat-storing material has a space in which an item to be transported may be accommodated. This space is located in the center of the spherical container. The heat-storing material surrounds the item to be transported, that is to say living cell cultures, in a spherical manner, such that practically the entire heat of the heat-storing material may be used to maintain the temperature of the items to be transported. The spherical shaped of the container has been chosen in order to minimize the heat-radiating outer face and to thus prolong the time during which the temperature is held. It is not provided that this transport container is transported in a rolling manner.
Publication CN 201942318 U discloses an intelligent system for real-time processing of orders with automatic delivery of goods to the customers, which operates using spherical transport containers which in each case comprise a spherical casing and an insert disposed therein, which is adapted to a rectangular, cylindrical or round container which is located in the sphere and which finally receives the goods per se. This system is conceived for long transport distances between the seller of the goods and the customer taking delivery of the goods, by way of urban and rural transport tubes and transport routes which are mostly underground.
A warehousing installation, a warehousing system, and a method for operating a warehousing system, which enable efficient and economical warehouse management and forming of picking lots, are desirable but not known from the prior art.